After The End of Gathering Blue
by Coondog
Summary: What happens after the last page of Gathering Blue? If the cliffhangertype ending bugged you, then here's an extension to that cliffhanger that ends with a cliffhanger! What really happened after the book ended? NOT YET COMPLETE


This has been bugging me since I read the book... I just HAD to finish it.

_It was fourteen days since Christopher and Matt had left the village. The life of the villagers had not changed, but that was to be expected. Kira somehow felt that everything should have changed, that everybody should be talking about Christopher, but she knew and was thankful that they had no idea that there was even another village out there. Kira decided that she would explore the forest, now that Matt was visiting. She knew there was nothing to fear in the forest, not now, but she was still unsure. Should she follow the path to the other village, just to get an idea where her father and Matt were? She couldn't do that, because if she did tempt herself with the possibilities, she might never return, and the village needed her. She had decided to explore the unknown, the rest of the forest, despite her disabilities. She had kept her plans away from the Council, but she was still nervous as she entered the woodland. It was time she explored her world, and what lay outside it._

Kira took a step into the forest, cautiously, doubtingly. With the absence of a path, everything she had ever been taught, about the woods and the beasts, nagged at her, warned her. She looked anxiously at Matt.

He simply shrugged and started walking confidently into the forest. Kira bit her lip and limped into the forest. She leaned heavily on her crutch, looking nervously from left to right. _Calm down! _She told herself. _There are no beasts! They don't exist. What am I afraid of? _She relaxed slightly, but tensed up again when she heard a growl.

"Matt," she began. "There are beasts out here. I heard a growl."

Matt laughed. "There be no beasts. Just Branchie."

Branch growled again. He had chased a small rodent up a tree, and was getting extremely frustrated trying to get it down.

Kira laughed apprehensively and moved on.

The walk was relatively calm. The sunlight shining through the leaves dappled the emerald grass, and a small brook ran somewhere up ahead. Kira's tensions melted away and she began to enjoy herself.

She looked contentedly at the scenery, the green grass, and the richly colored cloudless sky. Her thoughts began to wander, to thoughts of blue and her father. She thought about Thomas (she couldn't seem to be able to think about much else these days) and the recent Gathering. Matt had long ago wandered ahead, but she didn't care.

Her thoughts were broken by a yell.

"Kira!" It was Matt. "Kira!"

Kira quickened her pace, and the thumping of her stick broke the calm.

"What's wrong, Matt?"

"Nuthin! I gotta show ye suttin!"

Kira saw Matt ahead, gazing at some unseen object.

"I'm coming!"

Kira froze in her tracks as she saw what Matt was looking at.

"Matt? What is this?"

"Donno. Whaddya think it is?"

Kira was lost for words. She had seen buildings like these, so many times, she had seen them on the Robe…

"It's a building from the Ruin, Matt." She finally said.

Matt gasped. "Like th Council Edifice?"

"Yes, Matt." Kira was dumbfounded. Another Ruin-time building? Then where were the colorful windows and bell tower?

Matt smiled broadly. "Then what ar we waitin fer? Let's go!"

He eagerly scampered down worn, dull, and grey walkway that rose from the dirt leading to the remains of a small spire-like structure, camouflaged in a hollow deep inside an exceptionally broad tree.

She painstakingly limped down the worn, hard path (she had never seen stone-hard dirt before) and saw cracked glass windows. A beaten-down door opened to a staircase that spiraled downwards into the ground. Such architecture had been lost during the Ruin. She pushed open the heavy, beaten door and descended the dark staircase. No fires or the artificial light she had grown used to at the Edifice lit the stair, and several times she nearly fell.

Finally the staircase leveled out and she found herself in a huge but low-ceilinged cavern. Shelves and boxes lined the walls, and occasionally an odd, beaten up metal box with a glass window attached to it would appear perched atop a wooden table. The entire place was lit up dully by a candle flickering where Matt was sitting at a table, fiddling happily with a disclike contraption he had found near the odd, windowed metal boxes.

"This be amazin!" he gasped as he saw her. "It's shiny on one side an dull on th utter." Branch was sniffing the bottom of a table a few feet away.

Kira nodded and curiously picked up a heavy object she had found on a shelf. It was similar in overall appearance to the Council Manual, and so she opened it.

Inside was something she thought she would never see by herself.

"Thomas!" Kira called as she limped quickly through the Edifice corridors. "Thomas!"

she approached Thomas' door and knocked. "Thomas!"

"Kira?" came the sleepy reply.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you, but we really need to talk."

"Sure, sure, come in."

Kira opened the door and saw Thomas, sitting up in a ruffled bed and rubbing his eyes.

"Kira, it's long after dark. What are you doing here?"

"I found something, Thomas. Writing, a whole room of it!"

"Can't it wait? I'm so tired, I couldn't concentrate if I tried."

"Please?"

Thomas sighed. "Fine."

Kira nodded happily and plunked the heavy object on his lap. He groaned and squinted at the object in the dark.

"I can't read in this light, Kira. If we ask the servers to have the light's lit, then they'll think something's up."

"Couldn't you teach me?"

Thomas laughed sleepily. "It takes more than one lesson in the middle of the night to learn to read and write. Women aren't allowed to read. Plus, if the Council finds out, we're dead. "

"They won't. I won't let them."

Thomas sighed. "I'll start teaching you in the morning. But go to bed, and we'll have to keep this secret."

Kira shrugged guiltily. "Sorry to have woken you."

"It's fine. Good night." Thomas yawned, rolled over, and covered himself up, dumping the heavy object onto the floor in the process.

"Good night." Kira whispered.

Kira woke to the sunlight streaming in through her window. Her first thought was of the room filled with writing and the odd windowed metal boxes. She jolted upright, realizing that it must be late morning. She quickly got dressed, picked up her crutch, and limped down to Thomas' room down the hall. She was about to knock when the door opened, and Thomas was standing in the doorway.

"I was about to go get you." He laughed.

"I hope we have enough time for this, between the Staff, Robe, doing reading lessons and keeping them secret." Kira whispered.

Thomas solemnly nodded and let her inside. Once the door was shut, he said,

"Alright, Kira, learning to read is not exactly easy. It takes lots of practice and hard work. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Kira licked her lips and nodded.

"Alright."

Thomas walked to a drawer near to where he kept the Staff. He opened it and brought out a small object that looked analogous to the Council Manual and the huge object the day before.

"This book is the first I ever read." He said.

Kira sat down and so began her first reading lesson.

_It was several weeks since Matt had left for the other village again, saying he would not return for a while. Whilst Kira had slowly begun to understand the world of reading and words, Thomas and Kira had less time for the reading lessons. Because of the great projects on the Robe and Staff that lay ahead of them, both of them had less time for anything much. For periods of time the strange underground room would slip out of Kira's thoughts, but never for long. Her thoughts often drifted to reading, and she would oftentimes find her hands not concentrating on her assigned stitching, but the wonderful patterns that came naturally to her since she was a tyke. She would consistently have to undo her stitches and start again, realizing that Jamison would not be pleased. She had learned from her father that she did not want Jamison to be displeased…_

"I can't take this anymore." Kira muttered, undoing her most recent stitches for the ninth time in a row.

Her hands automatically stitched what they wanted to on the blank stretch of fabric. She couldn't get them to do what Jamison had told her to put there. For a while, yes, she could put the Council's images of the future there, but then her old, joyful patterns would take over.

"Why can't I determine my own future?" she asked, throwing the needle down in frustration. "Why can't I make my own stitching?"

She looked unhappily at the wooden box that held the little scrap of cloth that had helped her so many times.

Kira folded the robe and covered it up. She picked up her crutch and limped down to Thomas' room.

She knocked, gently.  
"Come in." Thomas' voice was riddled with worry and shame.

Kira opened the door and shambled in. Thomas turned his head. He looked bothered and shamed, tired.

"I can't concentrate! These patterns the Council gave me just don't seem right. What is wrong with me?"

"You too?" Kira asked.

"I need a break." Thomas muttered, shaking his head sleepily.

Kira nodded and waited for him to stand up. "Do you want to see this place I found a few weeks ago? The one that triggered the reading lesson question?"

Thomas shrugged. "Sure."

Kira led him down to the side door of the Council Edifice, and to the place where she and Matt had entered the forest weeks ago.

"Aren't you afraid of beasts?" Thomas asked.

Kira shook her head and stepped into the forest, letting Thomas follow her. It was a cool day out, and slightly overcast, so the sunlight did not enhance the scenery as much as it had the day she had discovered the odd room.

After about an hour's walk, they arrived at the small, camouflaged building. It loked the same as it had the day when Kira and Matt had found it.

Kira led Thomas down the pitch-black staircase, stumbling finally into the room. It was not lit, and Thomas fumbled around in the darkness.

"I can't see a thing." He muttered.

Kira tripped over her own crutch in the darkness. She toppled to the ground, yelling. As she fell, she whipped her hand up. It brushed something, and suddenly the entire chamber was lit up like a beacon.

Thomas stood stunned in the suddenly bright chamber. He helped Kira up, gave her the crutch, and examined the thing sticking out of the wall that Kira had brushed.

Thomas looked closely at the thing. "Looks like a thick little white twig. It says 'Off' near the bottom and 'On' near the top. That's how the servers turn on the lights! Bewitched sticks!"

Kira shook her head and looked around. She could see much more than she could before, and she saw the red shelves were stacked with the books she had been learning to read.

She slowly read along the side of one book. "Thomas, does this read 'Kensus' or 'Sensus'?"

"Sensus. Sensus 2005." He replied. "I wonder what that is?"

Kira shrugged and opened the book. She tediously looked through the thick tome, before realizing something.

"Thomas, I think these are records of people from before the Ruin. Thomas, we have the entire past in our hands. This IS the Ruin, Thomas. It's nothing like I thought it would be."


End file.
